To Catch a Cat Burglar
by amandajoyce118
Summary: When Jemma prepares to move into a new apartment, she discovers a friend's cat has been stealing the neighbor's clothes.


The window opened with something of a whoosh, sticking to its frame after not being used for so long. Jemma took a deep breath of the fresh air from outside, leaning forward to check out the view. There were no clotheslines stretched between buildings, there was no garbage in the street below. There wasn't even the sound of honking cars or yelling kids from the park up the street. She was already in love with it, but the rent was higher and it was farther from work, so really, she was leaving it up to her roommate.

"Do you guys allow cats?" Daisy asked thoughtfully from where she had her head stuck in the pantry off the kitchen.

"Oh, I'm sorry. We have a 'no pets' policy here," the woman showing the apartment told them with a regretful smile.

"Daisy, Koschka isn't even our cat! She's not coming with us!" Jemma shook her head and closed the window with a pop, walking the length of the living room to join them in the kitchen - the biggest kitchen she'd ever seen in an apartment in this city.

As the leasing agent began listing all of the amenities though, Daisy, Jemma could tell, was having a harder time hiding her excitement at the prospect of this new apartment, which could easily fit two of their old apartments inside of it.

It was the rent that clenched it though - it had been dropped significantly from the original asking price.

"We'll take it," Daisy said.

"Great. You can fill out the paperwork on Monday."

-o-

"It's a good thing Natasha comes back this weekend," Daisy mused as she dangled a sock into a cardboard box, watching a little black cat pop it's head out and grab the end of the sock before it let go and dove back into the empty box.

"Yes, as adorable as Koschka is, I'm ready to be done with her whining at two in the morning to get out on the fire escape, or for her to jump up in my face every time I attempt to eat a tuna sandwich." Jemma laughed when the animal in question popped her head back up over the box flap and made a swipe for the sock in Daisy's hand.

Jemma shook her head as Daisy struggled to get the sock away from the feline, the animal's claws locked into the end of the fabric.

"You better watch out," she mused as she carefully wrapped another picture frame and placed it in a half full box. "She's going to put holes in your sock. And that's a cute pattern."

"My sock?" Daisy pulled it from the animal's grasp as the cat's head disappeared again, holding the article of clothing up from her spot sitting on the floor. "I thought this was one of yours?" She shook the sock in front of her. Longer than the average sock, with tiny brown monkeys holding Erlenmeyer flasks, it did look like the kind of whimsical piece that Jemma would wear with her pajamas in the winter.

"I don't have socks that look like that." Jemma shook her head, eyes wide. She stuck with plain black socks for work, but she did have socks with chemical formulas and even socks with patterns corresponding to different major holidays on them that she wore to be cheeky on special occasions. But she, most definitely, did not own any socks with monkeys on them.

"Neither do I?" Daisy held the sock out a little further from herself, delicately holding it by her thumb and forefinger now that she wasn't sure to whom it actually belonged. "Whose sock is this then?"

Koschka took advantage of the distraction and jumped up, snatched the sock from Daisy's hand, and then disappeared back into the box with her prize.

-o-

After a day of packing and arguing about who the monkey sock actually belonged to, Daisy had the offending garment stretched across their dining room table, a sample of hers and Jemma's socks laid out alongside it.

"So… this sock… definitely bigger than both of ours."

"It's a man's sock," Jemma remarked decisively while perusing a takeout menu. They'd made the agreement to pack up the kitchen and not cook for the next few days until they could cook in their brand new space. To be fair, it hadn't been all that difficult for Daisy to convince her that the kitchen should be packed up first.

"Thank you, Sherlock."

"I would say 'you're welcome, Doctor Watson,' but we both know I can't call you a doctor."

Daisy rolled her eyes as Jemma got the dig in for the hundredth time. "Yes, Jemma. I know. I quit before getting my doctorate. I can't help it if it was boring, okay?"

Jemma laughed, but she set the menu she had been examining down in a pile of takeout menus. "Well, who have you had over recently? Anyone with a thing for science?" She indicated the flasks on the socks with one neatly manicured finger.

"You know I haven't been on a date since Ward decided to be the biggest disappointment I've ever met."

"Well neither have I, and this hardly looks like something he would have in his wardrobe."

"So where the hell did the sock come from?"

The two of them stared at it, contemplating, until Koschka jumped up on the table, neatly placed her teeth around the middle of it, and then jumped down, taking the sock with her across the apartment floor.

"Maybe it got mixed in at the laundry?" Jemma suggested while she picked up another menu. "How do you feel about Colombian? We haven't tried this place yet?" She waved the menu as Daisy followed Koschka to Jemma's bedroom.

"Uh… I think we can worry about that later. You've got to see this."

When Jemma caught up with Daisy, the other woman was leaning against the wall, staring at the space behind Jemma's dresser. Jemma was suddenly very alarmed that she was going to find a group of kittens or possibly the remnants of dead mice, even though she knew Koschka couldn't actually give birth to any kittens and that if she ever did catch live prey, she tended to leave it in the middle of the hallway. What she found when her flatmate moved out of the way and she took a peek for herself was even stranger. Without another word, she gestured for Daisy to grab one end of the dresser so they could shift it away from the wall.

What was behind it was a stash of clothing, and Koschka curled up in the middle of it, her wide eyes staring at them as they moved the furniture away as though they had offended her deepest sensibilities.

"Something you want to tell me, Jemma?" Daisy teased as she picked up a pair of boxer briefs in a dark plaid print.

"Where did all of this come from?" Jemma began pulling the pieces out from underneath the cat, who tried to claw them back, meowing in protest as her makeshift nest was disturbed.

"You're a little hoarder, aren't you?" Daisy cooed, picking up the cat and holding her against her chest while Jemma spread the clothing out on the floor.

There were several socks, some of them paired with their perfect match, and several pairs of boxer briefs - all the same size and clearly belonging to the same person. While there were some sensible black socks and dark blue pants, there were also whimsical patterns that illustrated physics principles and a few more with various monkey characters on them.

"Koschka," Jemma admonished the little animal that Daisy was cradling, "you can't steal people's clothes! What would Natasha say?" She shook her head as the cat just purred and rubbed its head against Daisy's shoulder. She threw her hands up in the air. "How are we supposed to know who they belong too?"

"We're going to have to catch the little monster in the act." Daisy scratched at Koschka's neck as she spoke. "Yes, we are." She set the cat back down on the floor, and waited. "Go steal us some underwear, Koschka."

"Daisy!"

-o-

It wasn't until Jemma was going through the contents of the cupboard under her bathroom sink the next day that Daisy came running in, Koschka clutched in her arms, along with a pair of boxer briefs with the blue and white of the St. Andrew's cross on it that they discovered what the cat had been up to.

"I figured it out!"

"You do realize you're holding a stranger's pants, right?" Jemma asked as she stood up from her spot on the bathroom floor.

"They're clean," Daisy told her. "Watch." She set the undergarment onto the growing pile they had on a chair in their living room before marching determinedly over to the window that led to their fire escape and setting Koschka down on the steps outside.

Jemma watched in fascination as the cat scrambled up the steps instead of down them, and Daisy gestured for her to follow. The two of them climbed up the two levels to make their way to the top of the building where Koschka hopped deftly onto the roof.

"Does this cat have a death wish?" Jemma muttered as she clutched the railing and continued the trek to the top.

When she climbed over the side, Daisy was already standing there pointing at Koschka, who was sitting below one of the clotheslines stretched across the roof. Her tail flicked back and forth as she watched the clothes swaying in the breeze. With no warning, the cat pounced, leaping up, balancing on her hind legs on a flower pot, and batting at a sock with little American footballs all over it. Eventually, she clamped her claws down and yanked, following her prize to the surface of the roof where she nudged it across the floor experimentally before biting down on one end of the material and clutching it to herself as she rolled to the side, furiously kicking at it until she was satisfied the sock couldn't fight back. Koschka promptly sat up, took the sock in her mouth, and trotted over to the roof's edge, where she prepared to head back down the fire escape.

"Stop her!" Jemma yelped.

Daisy deftly scooped up the cat, but she didn't remove the sock from her mouth while she headed towards the internal staircase that would lead them back to their apartment. Koschka just clutched the sock contentedly while Jemma stared at the laundry on three different clotheslines on the roof.

At least she knew the clothes belonged to someone in the building.

-o-

"What are you doing?" Jemma wondered as she watched Daisy write a message in bright marker on a piece of paper.

"I'm going to find the rightful owner of the underwear. Or, we are." She gestured to the end of the paper with the marker's tip where she had put Jemma's phone number.

"And why aren't _we_ using your phone number?"

"I think _we_ are both aware that _I_ don't always remember to pay my phone bill," Daisy remarked casually.

"You have to go months without paying before they turn you off!" Jemma protested, laughing, but she let it go, allowing her to post the sign as-is.

 _Are you missing your underwear?_

 _We have discovered that our cat has stolen a large number of underwear and socks from a man in this building._

 _If it is you, we apologize._

 _We have your clothing and can return them, but we don't know who you are._

 _Please call or text us to set up an exchange before we move!_

Jemma ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "Couldn't you just-"

"I'm not sitting on the roof all day waiting for someone to come and get their clothes off the line. What if the new sock doesn't belong to the same person as the underwear?" That thought made a realization dawn on Daisy and she ran to a stack of boxes in the living room and began opening them at a furious pace.

"Hey! I just finished packing those this morning!"

Daisy lifted out her old polaroid camera that she typically only used at parties when she was feeling, in her words, artistic inspiration. Jemma nodded.

"Help me spread these out," Daisy instructed, and the two set about arranging the socks and underwear over their floor.

There were now 10 pairs of underpants and over a dozen socks. Jemma shook her head as she flattened out a pair of pants that had the same design as Tony Stark's Iron Man armor. That seemed like something a little boy would wear instead of a grown man, and she found it endearing that this man, whomever he was, still had heroes - especially one who was as intelligent as Tony Stark. Clearly, this man had an interest in at least one scientific field as well since he had Newton's Laws of Motion illustrated on the next pair she laid out. And there were those monkeys with Erlenmeyer flasks on his socks.

After staring at this man's underwear everyday for the last three days, she felt like she knew him. He was probably young, maybe her age, or even Daisy's. He had a sense of humor. No man would wear monkeys on his feet if he didn't. He also had a sensible side though since there were plenty of black, dark blue, and even dark green items that seemed to indicate he bought at least some of his clothing in one of those multi-packs at a big box store.

She ran one finger over the elastic of the boxer briefs that were designed like the flag of St. Andrews. The thought flitted through her mind that the blue and white of the design was one of the Scottish flags. Was he a Scot? Or was it just a coincidence?

She was, admittedly, intrigued. She couldn't help it. By all accounts, he seemed like he would be a fascinating person.

She pulled her hand back when Daisy gave her a look, and moved out of the way so Daisy could snap a picture, but Koschka padded up to the arrangement of clothing and plopped herself down right in the middle of it, surveying her catches. Jemma rolled her eyes, but Daisy nodded and snapped the picture, setting the polaroid to the side to dry, then snapped another.

"Why do you need two?"

"One's for us. How many people can say their cat stole a neighbor's underwear? I need proof for when we tell this story at parties."

"She's not our cat!"

-o-

Much to her surprise, Jemma found a text from an unknown number on her phone just as she was leaving for work the next morning.

 _Hello, I think your cat might have stolen my clothes?_

She raised an eyebrow. How irresponsible was this man that he had left his clothing on the rooftop overnight? But then she considered that if someone else's cat had stolen her undergarments, she might have not wanted to tell them initially either. Yes, she decided, she most definitely would have written it off as a loss unless the cat had stolen her favorites. And even then, she wasn't sure how she felt about her underthings sitting in a complete stranger's apartment just waiting to be claimed.

"Daisy!" She stuck her head in her roommate's room, whose head was still partially hidden under several blankets. Jemma perched on the edge of the bed and nudged her shoulder. "Someone is claiming Koschka's clothes!"

"Tell them we need proof," she mumbled from the depths of the blankets.

"What? I thought you were trying to get the clothes back to their owner, not trying to get -"

"Dick pics?" Daisy supplied cheekily from under the blankets before pulling them down from her face.

Jemma rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"I'm not." Sitting up, Daisy held her hand out for the phone, and against her better judgment, Jemma let her take it. "It's just that we don't know this guy's legit. How do we know he's not some serial killer with a weird fetish for underwear stealing cats?"

"Okay. That seems very specific, but I'll accept that reasoning."

"So, we just need to know that he's the real deal." Daisy quickly typed out a message, hit send, and then handed the phone over to Jemma. "Now, I'm going to sleep until noon. I'll see you after work."

As she left the apartment, Jemma checked her outgoing messages to find:

 _No offense meant, but how do we know they really belong to you? We're going to need some proof._

-o-

Jemma spent her entire trip to work thinking about the kinds of messages she could end up with in response to Daisy's text, but to her surprise, she didn't receive any kind of reply until much later in the day. She checked her phone when she took a bathroom break from her analysis, at the beginning and end of her lunch, and when she left for the day, and there was nothing. It was just after she got off the train that her phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling her bag in tighter under one elbow, Jemma reached into her pocket with her other hand to check and see if it was Koschka's victim.

 _If you're trying to get me to send pictures in my underwear, I don't have any._

Jemma smothered a laugh. She was glad she wasn't the only one who thought Daisy's wish for proof seemed a little odd. Her phone buzzed again.

 _Not that I would send them if I had them. I don't even know you? That would be inappropriate._

Jemma really did laugh then, readying herself to reply, but the phone gave another buzz.

 _Not that I would even if I did know you. Can we start over?_

Jemma hurriedly typed, "it's fine. I understand," and sent the message into the ether. He was nervous. It was sweet. She thought for a moment before sending a new message.

 _What about proof that you have one of the other missing socks?_

She was nearly back to the apartment complex when a picture message popped up on her phone of the mate to the monkeys with Erlenmeyer flasks she had sitting in her soon-to-be-vacant living room. The sock in question was held in a rather pale hand with well worn lines and neatly trimmed fingernails.

 _So he works with his hands_ , she thought to herself with a smile.

She waited until she was just outside of the building to send another message.

 _I'm almost home. Would you like to come by and pick up your things? Should I bring them to you?_

He must have been waiting for her response because there was a near immediate reply.

 _Which apartment are you in?_

Jemma hesitated, walking inside, and checked her mail while she thought. Did she really want to give a man she didn't know her apartment number? It wasn't as though she and Daisy would be there much longer. Was it really that risky? Daisy's line about a serial killer with a cat fetish was starting to get to her, even if he did seem sweet. She decided that if Daisy was home, she'd do it. After all, there were two of them and one of him.

She took the steps two at a time, admittedly a bit curious about the man whose clothing had been taking up space, not just in her living room, but also in her brain. She wanted to know if the idea she had of him measured up to the real thing. Not that she would really be able to tell by a quick handing over of his clothing.

When she reached her apartment, Daisy was sitting on the sofa, a new batch of takeout containers on the table in front of her.

"You're just in time," she told Jemma. "The food got here about five minutes ago."

"Oh, good, you're home." Jemma dropped her bag into a chair, shed her cardigan, and pulled her hair out of its clip in a hurry. Untucking her white button down with one hand and reaching for her phone with the other she sent her apartment number off before she could change her mind.

"Yes. I'm home. I'm always home. I work from here, remember?" Daisy eyed her curiously. "Why are you undressing in the living room?"

"I'm not undressing. I'm just trying to make myself look presentable, that's all." She practically skipped into her room and deposited her things there, trading her button down for a more comfortable tee just as she heard a knock on the door.

She tried to get back to the living room to answer it before Daisy, but her roommate was already there, pulling the door open and smiling at whomever was on the other side.

"Can I help you?"

"Erm - I messaged you about my clothes?"

 _Yes, he was most definitely Scottish._

Jemma walked carefully into the edge of the room, hands nervously twisting into the fabric of her shirt. She wanted to see what he looked like, to put a face to the, well, pants.

"Jemma, it's Koschka's victim! You didn't tell me you talked to him again!"

Jemma came the rest of the way into the room, motioning for Daisy to let him in.

"Come on in," Daisy drawled, moving out of the way, shooting a wide smile in Jemma's direction as she did.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, Jemma waved uncertainly when the owner of the clothing walked inside.

"Hi," she said, crossing the room and holding out one hand. "Jemma."

"Fitz."

He took her hand gently, but gave her a firm handshake, and Jemma had enough time to note that even though he might have had callouses from working with his hands, his skin was relatively soft - and very warm. In fact, everything about him seemed warm, from the slight blush on his cheeks to the bright blue of his eyes to the zip-up hoodie he was wearing over his t-shirt and jeans.

"I'm really sorry about this," Jemma jumped right in. "Koschka isn't actually our cat. Our friend works out of the country a lot and we're cat sitting. We didn't realize she'd been taking your clothes until we moved my dresser away from the wall and -"

"Ah, she'd been hiding them." Fitz nodded sagely as if he understood the ways of the cat, giving Jemma the chance to see that he was smiling, his mouth slightly crooked, and that his hair, though it was trimmed relatively short, looked like it would be in tight curls if he let it grow out.

"Yes." Jemma nodded, her stomach clenching in reaction to the simple act of him smiling at her. She hadn't really expected that he would be quite so attractive, and she was finding it a pity that if she gave all of his clothing back to him, she'd likely never see him again. "I - erm - know that you had washed everything before, but since the cat had been laying in it, I thought you might not want all the cat hair - erm - you know." She gestured vaguely to his hips, then, mortified, turned and grabbed the bag she'd placed his things in from a chair. "I washed them again." Her voice sounded unnaturally high and she forced herself to not look over at Daisy who was silently laughing from her post near the front door.

"Oh, you really didn't have to do tha', but thank you." Fitz took the bag from her and scratched the back of his neck nervously. After they stood in silence for a few moments, he asked, "So… where is Koschka? I'd like to meet the cat that stole my clothes."

He gave a bashful smile in Jemma's direction, and her stomach did something like a somersault in response.

"Oh! I'm not sure. I just got in. Daisy?"

"Hmm?" Daisy looked up from the screen of her phone, feigning nonchalance, and then blanched when she realized where the cat was, gesturing to the coffee table in the living room.

"Koschka!" Jemma admonished. "I don't think that lobster sauce was yours!"

The cat perched in the middle of the table, her head in one of of the takeout containers, tail twitching behind her. She barely glanced up at what was going on around her before dipping her nose back in.

Fitz laughed, and Jemma turned to him in surprise. Even his laugh was warm. She wanted to hear it again.

"Can't really blame her. Lobster sauce is delicious. Though you probably won't want to eat tha' now."

He crept closer to the cat, and Jemma opened her mouth to warn him that Koschka didn't really like strangers, but the cat simply arched her spine when he knelt to pet her.

"Amazing," Daisy told Jemma. "She likes him better than she likes you. If you'd tried to touch her while she was eating, she'd have taken a swipe at you."

Jemma crossed her arms over her chest when Koschka removed her head from the container and blinked up at Fitz. She then closed her eyes and nuzzled his hand like she was an eager puppy or something instead of a temperamental cat.

"Unbelievable," Jemma muttered. "I knew she liked Daisy better than me. But even you." She faltered, wanting to clarify that she was sure he was likable, but her tongue stuck somewhere behind her teeth, and she didn't say it.

"Explains why she steals his clothes," Daisy offered.

"Ah, yes." Fitz stood and turned to the, not noticing Koschka pawing at the bag dangling from one hand. "Thank you for this. Again." He started to take a step toward Jemma again, but Koshcka's claws sunk into the bag and she pulled on it with a _pop!_ "What on earth is it you want?" He asked, directing his attention back to the cat.

Opening the bag, he reached in with a sigh and emerged with one of his socks, the same one that he had given Jemma proof of over the phone. Setting the bag on the floor, he deftly tied the sock into a series of knots before dangling it in front of Koschka. Jemma watched him, her smile growing the longer he played with the cat. When he let the sock drop to the floor and Koschka scooped it up, trotting across the floor with it so she was out of his reach, he grabbed the bag again and looked at the women uncertainly.

"I guess... I should... go?"

"Right. Of course. We don't want to hold you up. You probably have dinner plans... or something." Jemma nodded and gestured to the door, swallowing down her disappointment.

"No, I just… I'm in a bidding war online for a fender for a 1962 Corvette for a client who wrecked his car." He shook his head. "I've been trying to find one for him for a few weeks now. Restoration is a difficult job."

"You're a mechanic?" Jemma asked eagerly.

"Sort of. My flatmate owns a garage and I've been helpin' him out. I've actually been looking for another job. I worked for Cybertech, but when they went under…" He left the rest of his sentence unsaid, but the name of the company sparked at the back of her mind.

"Are you in robotics?" She wondered as she walked him to the door.

"I've dabbled in it. I'm a mechanical engineer, so I've worked in a few different areas." Fitz shrugged as if it was no big deal.

"You should call me," Jemma blurted out before shaking her head. "I mean, I work for The Playground. We're a research group, but most of our work is in biochemistry and biomechanics. I'm sure I could set up an interview for you."

"Yeah?" His eyes lit up at the prospect.

"Yeah. Yes."

"I'll do that."

"Okay."

They both nodded, and Jemma grabbed the doorknob, twisting and pulling so that the door was wide open for him, but he hesitated before going through it.

"I'll call you tomorrow? Maybe we could set up a meeting to talk about it? Over dinner?"

Jemma smiled at how pink his cheeks grew as he asked the question. "Yes," she agreed. "That would be lovely."

When he finally made it out the door, Daisy gave something of a whistle before she teased, "Jemma Simmons has a date with a cute boy. A shame all the mystery's gone already. You already know what his underwear looks like."

"Not all of them," Jemma responded before she could stop herself.

-o-

Jemma hummed to herself as she taped up the very last box. Koschka had been taken off their hands by Natasha, who had promised to come back to help move everything into their rented truck. Her dinner "meeting" with Fitz had gone better than expected as he was scheduled for an interview with her supervisor next week. She'd given him a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night too, getting a wide smile from him in return. They'd exchanged a few texts as well, mostly of Koschka playing with the sock he'd left behind. And she was feeling especially proud of her organizational system for the move. Everything was going to plan. Perfect.

Until she looked at the clock and realized they were running 15 minutes behind the schedule she'd set.

"Daisy? Where is your friend with the truck? I thought he'd be here by now."

"He's on his way. Relax. There was a line at the rental place." Daisy stretched out on the couch, fingers typing over her phone. She had just moved a stack of boxes into their hall as the first wave of _actually_ moving, and as she explained to Jemma, she was already too tired to take them down to the lobby. "Besides, Natasha isn't even here to help yet either."

"Right, okay." Jemma pulled her marker from her hair and hastily scrawled a note on every side of the box as to what was in it. Just as she capped her marker, a knock came from their open door.

"Somebody order a moving truck and some muscle?" A deep voice asked.

Jemma raised her eyebrows in surprise at the very large man standing in the doorway. She had always pictured Daisy's friends as the kinds of guys who sat bent over desks and hidden away in server rooms somewhere. Her roommate did so much work on other people's websites that she hadn't considered Daisy might know someone who looked like he could bench press… well… her.

"Yes! Mack! Thank God. Jemma was about to flip out that we're running 15 minutes behind schedule!"

"I was not flipping out!" Jemma rolled her eyes and took a few steps forward to introduce herself. "I'd just like to get moved in before dark."

"Well, I brought you some extra help. I brought my roommate along." Mack gestured over his shoulder, but Jemma couldn't see anyone behind him.

"Well, if he's as well formed as you are, I'm sure we'll be done in no time." Jemma regretted her words almost as soon as she said them and winced. "I just meant that you look very… capable."

Daisy snorted and started showing Mack which pieces of furniture she needed help with.

"Not quite as well formed, I'm afraid," a familiar voice admitted as Jemma came face to face with Mack's roommate.

"Fitz!" She smiled widely. "You're Mack's roommate?"

"Huh." Daisy stopped what she was doing and feigned a look of complete and utter innocence. "What a coincidence."

Jemma was entirely certain there was more to her innocent expression, but she let it go in favor of having Fitz help her move her bookshelves, spending the entire walk down the stairs giving him interview tips.

"When you get the job," she offered as they loaded the bookshelf into the back of the truck, "we should have lunch. Celebrate."

"Yeah?" Fitz looked hopeful as he jumped down from the back of the truck to the asphalt.

Jemma nodded. "And - erm - Daisy and I were going to order in at the new place tonight, you know, to thank Natasha and Mack - for their help, obviously. If they want. You should definitely stay. For dinner. With us." She gestured behind herself as Natasha walked up, meeting Daisy and Mack who were exiting the building with a second shelf.

"Yeah. Thanks."

They grinned at one another for a moment before Daisy called to them.

"You guys realize you're blocking us from getting to the truck, right?"

-o-

Jemma watched out of the corner of her eye as Natasha popped a piece of pepperoni in her mouth and shot a shrewd glance toward her and Fitz, seated side by side on the sofa in the new apartment, hardly any space between them as they talked and laughed, making fun of some astrophysics article they'd both read. Natasha reached for another slice of pizza as Mack and Daisy joined her at the kitchen counter and Jemma pretended that she wasn't half listening to whatever it was they were talking about as Fitz's laughter trailed off.

"So… does this mean you're done with my cat?"

"Yeah, we can't have Koschka here anyway. No pets allowed." Daisy pouted as she grabbed another slice for herself. "She's going to miss me."

"What are you talking about?" Mack glanced back and forth between them.

"I might have trained Koschka to steal Fitz's clothes off the line," Daisy said before taking a large bite of pizza. "In my defense," she mumbled around a mouthful of cheese and bread, "I didn't know you were going to bring him to help move. I hadn't _actually_ met him yet."

"Why would you -" Mack shook his head and twisted a cap off a beer. "You know what? I don't need to know."

"Oh, come on, they're obviously perfect for each other," Daisy told him by way of explanation after swallowing her food.

"I still don't understand what that has to do with Turbo's clothes being stolen by a cat," Mack deadpanned.

"Just go with it." Natasha picked off another pepperoni and ate it. "It's what I do."

Jemma's face heated up as she realized that her roommate didn't know that she and Fitz could hear the entire conversation that was going on in the kitchen. She tapped one finger on the edge of the bottle of beer in her lap and kept her eyes focused firmly on that. She had hoped Fitz wasn't paying attention to the others, but he faltered in his explanation about a new telescope design he'd just heard about, his knee bumping hers as he shifted in his seat, and she knew he had.

"I cannot believe," Jemma whispered, leaning in close so no one would hear her, "that she trained a cat to do those things. She can't even babysit a five-year-old."

When she glanced up at him, his eyebrows were raised in surprise, face adorably flushed.

"Not mine," Jemma clarified quickly with a smile. "My niece. She stayed with me for a week last summer."

"Ah." He nodded his head, then chuckled. "It's kind of nice. That she cares enough to take the time to-"

"Steal your pants?" Jemma snorted before bringing her beer up for a sip. "Yes," she told him after swallowing, "my flatmate is so thoughtful that way. Stealing men's underwear to help along my love life." She rolled her eyes and it was Fitz's turn to laugh again. She quite liked the way it sounded. "I think I could do just fine on my own, thank you very much."

"You should tell her you hate me," Fitz murmured. "Tell her I used to work for Roxxon or something, don't care about the planet. It's a deal breaker."

"Did you?" She asked curiously, wondering why he picked Roxxon - the biggest oil company in the world with the worst reputation.

"What? No? Of course not. Bloody vultures."

"Well, now that I know, I couldn't possibly." She shook her head and gave a mock sigh of defeat. "Besides, I'm a horrible liar. She'd see right through me if I said I hated you." Fitz's mouth quirked up in the makings of a smile, and Jemma stopped herself from doing the same. "Maybe you should tell me all the bad things about you, so I can work myself up to it."

"All of them?" It was Fitz's turn to give a sigh. "We could be here all night."

"Don't skip any," she teased, her smile growing.

"Hmm." Fitz pretended to think about it before shaking his head. "You know what, actually, I don't think I have any bad qualities."

Jemma laughed loudly at that, but cut herself off quickly and put on a serious expression while she told him, "but really. I feel like I should know what I'm getting into."

She watched Fitz place both hands palm up in front of him as if searching for an answer. "What about me? Shouldn't I get to know too?"

"Fine." Jemma heaved a dramatic sigh. "Here's one: Daisy thinks I'm far too interested in Doctor Who. She calls it an obsession when I pick apart the science. I call it relaxing."

"Well, that's not bad, is it? Tha' show is both fascinatin' and entertainin'. Surprised Koschka didn't get ahold of my Tardis socks, I am. She seemed to like all the other novelty ones."

"You have Tardis socks?"

"You don't? Clearly you're not as obsessed as your flatmate thinks." Fitz didn't look away from her eyes as she rewarded him with a warm smile before biting down on her lower lip and waiting for him to go on. "I'm allergic to cats," Fitz admitted.

"But you were petting Koschka!"

"Because she's adorable. Who wouldn't want to pet tha' little face? And she has good taste in socks."

"Fitz!" Jemma smacked him lightly in the chest with the back of one hand.

"It's not like I'm highly allergic," he protested, grabbing onto her hand to stop her from hitting him again, and much to her delight, not letting go. "Basically just nose runnin' and things like that, itchy eyes. It's fine."

They went on like that for the next hour, trading information back and forth and going off on tangents about their favorite scientific breakthroughs of the last hundred years. Jemma forgot as the hour went on that she was supposed to be finding reasons to tell Daisy she disliked him, becoming more and more interested with everything he told her, wondering why they'd never crossed paths before, and just when it was that Daisy had managed to interact with him and decide he would be perfect for her.

By the time Natasha had left and Daisy had taken Mack out on the fire escape to show him the view, and complain about the lack of window latches, Fitz was talking about his latest idea for a longer lasting fuel cell. Jemma was listening, she absolutely was, but as soon as Mack and Daisy were out of earshot, she blurted out the words, "Breakfast!"

"I like pancakes," Fitz answered immediately, not missing a beat, one eyebrow raising in surprise.

"No." Jemma shook her head. "I mean, so do I, but I meant - would you like to have breakfast tomorrow?"

"Breakfast?" Fitz echoed.

His face colored, and Jemma realized what it must have sounded like. She wasn't exactly asking him to stay the night. She had just decided that she didn't want to go another day without spending time with him. A part of her hated that her roommate had been right, but the larger part of her didn't care and wanted to soak up as much time with Fitz as she possibly could.

"Or brunch if you like to sleep in on Sundays. Or lunch even." Deciding she sounded a little overeager, she added a bit more softly, "We've already had dinner. Twice. And I know we said we'd do lunch after you're hired, which you will be. I just…"

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes," he repeated more firmly. "Breakfast is great."

"Okay. Good." She shifted in her seat to place her beer bottle on the table in front of her, careful to set in on a coaster, not noticing as she did that she had scooted just a bit closer to him in the process. Their sides pressed together even though there was still half a sofa's worth of room on her other side.

-o-

Jemma sighed as Daisy and Mack slid into chairs at the table with them. When she had suggested breakfast, this had not exactly been what she meant. By the set of Fitz's jaw and the way he was glaring at the menu in front of him, she was certain he hadn't had this in mind when he agreed to it either.

She had tried to sneak out early that morning, but to her surprise, Daisy was already up and looking through their fridge for something to eat. When she spotted Jemma heading out, she had immediately invited herself along, not even batting an eye when Jemma had mentioned that she was meeting someone for breakfast. A quick exchange of texts with Fitz had nearly an identical scenario playing out with him and Mack. Could two people not have breakfast in peace?

Jemma sighed again, trying to adjust to give herself a little more room as Daisy sprawled across her section of the table, her elbows out at either side as she spread her menu out and her legs crossed in Jemma's direction, one foot dangling in Jemma's space. She scooted just to the side in her chair under the pretense of shifting to hang her bag on the back, putting her closer to the end of the table, her foot bumping Fitz's in the process. She glanced up sharply, ready to apologize, but he was steadfastly glaring at his menu, color high on his cheeks, so she bit down on a smile and set about looking over her breakfast options herself.

Maybe breakfast wouldn't be so bad.

When the waitress came back and took their orders, her left shoe was planted on the floor right next to Fitz's foot, waiting for him to move. He did, just as he began to recite his order, and he faltered for a moment, pretending to look down at the menu as though he'd forgotten his options for meat. Jemma stifled a giggle as he tensed his leg against hers and completed his order.

They went on like that for the entire time that Daisy and Mack peppered them with questions about Fitz possibly coming to work with Jemma - constantly trying to interrupt each other with a nudge with various degrees of success. Jemma knew they would probably pay for their actions if Daisy or Mack noticed what they were doing, but she didn't care. They had invited themselves along on what was supposed to be a date, even if she and Fitz hadn't actually acknowledged that fact, and neither of them seemed to notice.

Jemma's sandal had long been forgotten on the ground and her toes were inching their way up Fitz's calf, the denim of his jeans rough on her skin, when he suddenly stood up, grabbing the bill from the middle of the table. She dropped her foot in surprise, eyes wide as their seatmates continued to eat.

"I - erm - forgot that I was goin' to check out tha' talk you suggested today." He kept his eyes somewhere above Jemma's head as he spoke and she nodded blankly. "I'll just get the cheque." He cleared his throat before adding, "you coming?"

"Oh." Jemma dropped her fork to her plate. She had been done for the last ten minutes anyway; she had just been pushing the remnants of her food around so she could keep talking to Fitz, hoping that Daisy and Mack would finish and be on their way. "Right. Yes. Let's go." Standing, she slipped her foot back into her shoe and grabbed her bag from the back of her chair.

"What's the talk about?'

Jemma fished for something related to her work that she didn't think her roommate would be interested in. "The possible applications of different neurotoxins in surgical procedures." She winced, realizing that would be one of the last things Fitz would be interested in.

"They have a new dispersal mechanism for some of them that I'm quite interested in," he added after her, surprising Jemma with how easily the lie rolled off his tongue. "Not so keen on operations, but I do want to see what they're usin' instead of needles."

"Ergh." Daisy's nose crinkled in disgust. "Don't tell me about any surgeries later. But have fun!"

"Same," Mack agreed before taking a sip of his coffee. "And thanks for breakfast, Turbo."

"Yeah, anytime," Fitz answered distractedly. "Jus' leave a tip."

Jemma let out something of a snort as Daisy gave them a thumbs up, and she followed him to the counter to pay, waiting impatiently by his side, trying not to tap her foot and failing as the cashier was glacially slow. She brought one hand up to pull the pendant on her necklace from side to side as she whispered to Fitz, "I could have gotten that, you know. I did ask _you_ to breakfast."

"I didn't think this was wha' you had in mind," he whispered back.

"Not exactly," she agreed.

When he'd signed for the meal, he placed his hand on the small of her back where she could feel each of the tips of his fingers through the thin material of her dress before his palm made contact with the base of her spine. She sucked in a quick but silent breath, and he must have felt her posture shift because he started to lift his hand away, but she stopped short to turn her head just enough to shoot him a wide smile.

"So, what are we really going to do?"

-o-

"Oh, Fitz. I really am sorry about this," Jemma said for what must have been the tenth time as Fitz sneezed.

"It's fine, really." He gave a little sniff as he wrinkled his nose and looked around the sparsely decorated apartment.

They had been two blocks down the street, set to visit an exhibit at the planetarium (astronomy wasn't either of their specialties, but they shared an interest in it) when Jemma had received a frantic phone call from Natasha. Frantic might have been overstating it though as it was rare for anything to ruffle Natasha's feathers. Natasha, who was on an assignment for work (which Jemma managed to carefully avoid detailing to Fitz) in the next state, had received her own phone call from the super of her building letting her know that the neighbors had been complaining again about the noise someone was making in her apartment. They claimed it sounded like they were being haunted.

"Haunted," Jemma scoffed as Koschka bounded up to her. "Honestly, what were they thinking?"

"Yeah," Fitz agreed, watching as Koschka wound herself around his legs in a figure-eight pattern. The cat let out a mournful yowl, the source of said haunting. "This is a new buildin'. The odds of a haunting are pretty slim."

Turning to him in surprise, Jemma started to laugh. "Do you believe in ghosts, Fitz?"

He shrugged, and Jemma led him into the kitchen, dodging Koschka's quick steps as she did.

"I like the idea of ghosts, I think. That people get to stick around if they don't feel finished with life."

"It would get awfully crowded," Jemma murmured, reaching into a cabinet to produce the container of cat food. She quickly changed the food and the water and gave Koschka a scratch behind the ears for good measure. She watched as the cat began to devour the food on her plate in quick bites. "It's a shame we can't have cats. Poor Koschka's going to be all on her own while Nat's busy again."

"I could take her."

Jemma was sure that Fitz was just saying that to be polite. "Fitz, you're allergic!" He waved off her concern though, making her smile. "And you have a flatmate. Does Mack even like cats?"

"Mack doesn't… not like cats? I don't think? It's never actually come up."

Jemma laughed, and when Fitz followed, Koschka popped her head up from the plate and looked at them appraisingly before going back to work on her food.

"I'll just have to make sure Daisy comes and checks on her this evening. She'll be fine until then."

When she glanced back over at Fitz though, he was leaning against the counter, his eyes on the little cat, and a soft smile on his face. Despite the slight sniffling he was still doing, he didn't appear to have any serious reactions to being around her. And Koschka was definitely much more friendly with him around. And Natasha was out of town for the day, which meant her apartment was empty, and they wouldn't be interrupted…

"Or we could hang out here for a little while, if you want? Maybe watch a movie? Or… I don't know. Nat likes puzzles. I think she has some around here somewhere?" She knew a jigsaw puzzle wasn't exactly anyone's idea of a perfect first date, but Fitz seemed like the kind of guy who would enjoy the challenge.

Plus, it would be amusing to watch him try to keep the pieces away from the cat.

"Puzzles?" Fitz echoed, a bemused smile working its way across his face. "I -" he seemed to struggle to come up with a response, and with a slight shake of his head, he crossed his arms and gave a full on grin. "I happen to be excellent at puzzles."

"Hmm. We'll see about that."

"You sure your friend won't mind tha' we're here?"

"No. She's out of town so much that she'd rather someone be here to make the neighbors think there's someone home. The only reason she doesn't live with anyone is because the last person she lived with studied exotic spiders for a living. Koschka ate one. There was a very large argument about it."

"Pity she didn't get superpowers."

"She's lucky she didn't die."

Natasha's apartment, sparse though it was, had a dining room table that offered them full view of the television in the living room. Jemma tasked Fitz with finding something on Netflix for them while she found three boxes of jigsaw puzzles in the linen closet. She grabbed them all, setting them down on the table just as Fitz joined her, not sure which one he would want to work on. She didn't pay attention to what he'd actually chosen for them to watch as he stood closer than was absolutely necessary and surveyed their options.

"Natasha's kind of dark, huh?" He pointed to two of the puzzles that were images of paintings from WWII. One featured a tank rolling into a town while the other was classic pin up girls armed with weapons, their enemies under their tall high heels. He moved those boxes out of their way, leaving the third - a 5,000 piece puzzle that featured a large number of cats playing in flower pots - in the center of the table.

"She has eccentric tastes," Jemma responded, secretly happy he'd picked the cat puzzle only because it was the most difficult and the one with the most pieces. It would keep them occupied for a very long time, which meant it was entirely possible that she could be spending the whole day with Fitz. "Did you - erm - have any other plans for today? I'm not keeping you from anything, am I?"

"Nope."

"Oh, good."

She was so consumed with opening up the puzzle box and paying attention to just where Fitz was as she took a seat at the table that she couldn't even tell what movie he'd put on if she'd been asked. Fitz wasn't paying attention to it either as she realized later when she sat back in her seat to watch him work for a moment. While she had spent the bulk of her time hunting down the straight edge pieces to form the border of the puzzle, meticulously putting it together and beginning to develop the picture from the outside in, Fitz had made one of the flower pots with a purple fan-like pattern on it his focus. He had nearly the entire pot together and had moved on to putting together the orange striped cat. Her mouth twitched in amusement as she reached across him to slide the purple flower pot to her side of the table and attached it to the corner she had been working.

Either he had been paying attention to which corner of the frame she had been starting from or they were just that much in sync.

"You didn't help do the outside edges at all," she teased him lightly, watching as the small orange cat's whiskers and nose came into focus as he pushed two pieces together.

Koschka perched on the edge of the table and pawed curiously at the far corner before sniffing it. Satisfied, the cat collapsed onto her side and stretched across the surface, only covering a small portion of the puzzle as her head tilted back to look at them.

"Seemed like you had a pretty good handle on it," he remarked with a shrug, his cheeks pink when she reached across him again to grab a few of the pieces he'd left next to him to move to her side of the puzzle.

She pulled away slowly though, pretending like she was looking at his work on the cat in front of him as she set the pieces down in her little corner.

"This isn't too boring for you, is it?"

"Nah. I told you. I'm excellent at puzzles."

He added an ear to the cat to punctuate his point and Jemma watched his face light up with satisfaction at another piece placed in the right spot. If she wasn't so intent on finishing things she started, she'd probably be content with just watching him do the puzzle on his own. He was just as fast as she was, and she suspected the attention to detail needed for engineering was responsible.

As an experiment, she decided to try things his way, picking a cat from the picture on the top of the box and searching out the pieces for it. He finished the orange striped one as she put together a calico. He had the siamese done while she nearly completed another. He seemed to catch on to her testing her own speed against his because he started sifting through pieces faster and talking to her less, a smirk seemingly etched permanently into his face. Jemma moved away from the cats since the remaining ones were all black and white and would lead to them fighting over all the same pieces. She quickly found the pieces for the bright red and pink flower pots, assembling them even quicker.

When it came down to the last handful of pieces for the cat in the middle, they were both laughing and nearly elbowing each other out of the way to make them fit.

"You are very competitive," Fitz joked as she mashed a piece into place.

"Like you're any better," she retorted as he did the same.

As they both rapidly placed their pieces into the correct spots, twisting and turning them to make them fit, Jemma realized that they were going to be missing a piece. She placed the last section of cut cardboard into place, Fitz's hands flat between her own on the board. There was still a tiny four pronged shape of dining room table showing right in the middle of the last kitten's chest though.

"Where did you hide it?" Fitz asked, not moving his hands. He gave a mock sigh. "Just had to get the last one, didn't you?"

"I don't have it," she protested with a laugh. "I thought you had it!"

She turned to face him, her arms still stretched over his, and found that they were much closer together than she had anticipated. His impossibly blue eyes were right in front of her, and her laughter stopped short.

"Jemma," he whispered.

"Yes?" She swallowed when she watched his gaze flicker to her mouth and her heartbeat sped up as his fingertips grazed one of her arms.

"If you don't tell me where that piece is, I'll have to resort to extreme measures."

"What kind of measures?"

Their gazes locked again and she giggled at the exasperated eye roll Fitz gave.

"The extreme kind, obviously. Weren't you -"

She didn't wait to find out what else he was going to tell her. Instead, she leaned forward to close what little distance was left between them, sliding forward on her seat until she was almost in his. Pressing her lips to his before she could think twice about it, she let herself sink into the kiss as he shifted, one of his arms moving out from under hers to reach around her and hold her close.

"This kind of extreme?" She mumbled against his mouth, trying to keep up the game, but really just wanting to kiss him again. He gave a hum in the way of an agreement, so she took that as her cue to kiss him again. And again. And again. Until she realized that sitting side by side in chairs at a dining room table wasn't exactly conducive to their present activities.

She pulled back from him with a sigh, gratified when his lips chased hers for a few seconds more.

"Does this mean I win?" She raised an eyebrow at him in challenge.

"Puzzles aren't meant to be competitive sports, you know."

"You're just upset because you didn't get to put in the last piece."

"Neither did you!"

They stared at one another for a moment before Jemma's lips twitched into another smile. "Best two out of three?"

As they pulled the puzzle apart and put the pieces back in the box, Jemma took the opportunity to steal as many kisses as possible. Koschka twitched her tail from the other side of the table, deftly knocking a puzzle piece into the chair behind her, where neither of them thought to look.

-o-

* * *

 **This story was inspired by a post I saw on tumblr of a notice and a cat in a photo of men's underwear. The real cat made the news in New Zealand where he liked to steal pairs of socks and underwear from the neighbors and his owners couldn't figure out why.**

 **Thanks go to StarryDreamer01 for beta-ing for me forever ago. I'm just now getting around to posting it!**


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